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Police said 17 people were killed in the blaze but warned this number is set to rise, with British media reporting the death toll could exceed 100.London Police commander Stuart Cundy said that the conditions inside Grenfell Tower mean that the search operation to recover the victims was extremely challenging. “This should not have happened in the beginning”, she said.”There is nothing to suggest at this time that the fire was started deliberately”, he added. “They need answers to provide them with security and peace of mind”.Smoke billows from a tower block severly damaged by a serious fire, in north Kensington, West London, Britain June 14, 2017.The many questions being asked now include whether a “stay put” fire protocol, which called for residents to remain in their apartments if there was a fire elsewhere in the building, might have turned a lethal fire even more deadly.May met victims privately at a central London hospital on Friday and had expressed her sorrow on television on Thursday after meeting emergency services personnel.The cause of the blaze is under investigation, but a tenants’ group had complained for years about the risk of a fire.”And once it’s safe, they are going to go into the building”, he said, in an attempt to calm the crowds.In a TV interview, Mrs May said the fire was “absolutely horrifying” and had been a “terrifying experience” for those affected.She also said: “I have heard horrifying stories from the fire brigade, from police and from victims themselves who were in that tower, but also from other local residents, some of whom of course have not been able to go back to their homes either”.Earlier May visited the scene of the disaster in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea.As the protesters sought to gain entry to an upper floor, police tried to bar their way.The Queen and Prince William visited a rest centre in west London helping those affected by the Grenfell Tower fire, as the official death toll nearly doubled to 30.Meanwhile, Queen Elizabeth II and her grandson Prince William visited a local sports center where Grenfell residents who lost their homes are being temporarily accommodated.May has been criticized from within her own Conservative Party over her response and she pledged on Thursday to hold a public inquiry into the fire at the social housing block.Some jumped to their deaths rather than face the flames, and witnesses reported seeing small children thrown from the tower by their families in a desperate bid to survive.City council chiefs have also written to residents in Aberdeen’s 59 tower blocks offering “assurances” that the cladding on their buildings do not appear to be the same kind as at Grenfell Tower.